The E-Ink displays used on e-readers and note-taking tablets haven’t really developed as fast as we’d like. To this day, they still have very limited colors and slow refresh rates that make them tougher to use for many types of computing. Apparently, though, there’s been significant development on the refresh rate front with the introduction of the Dasung Paperlike 13K Color monitor.
An E-Ink monitor, the display boasts a respectable refresh rate of 37Hz, which should eliminate many of the issues people face with these paper-like screens. That’s fast enough to let you watch most movies, scroll through spreadsheets smoothly, and do a whole load of things that were just absolutely clunky on previous E-Ink panels, potentially making it viable for most daily computing tasks.
The Dasung Paperlike 13K Color is a portable monitor with a 13.3-inch color E-Ink display that should deliver an eye-friendly paper-like reading experience. Of course, the big selling point here is the fact that it uses an E-Ink panel with 37Hz refresh rate, which means it can serve performance resembling that of a traditional LCD screen. Sure, you won’t have the best time playing games on a 37Hz display, but everything else, from watching movies and editing pictures to scrolling through long documents should feel a lot like it does on a regular monitor.
It has 3200 x 2400 resolution, so things can get pretty sharp, especially with the display being on the smaller side of things. There’s also an anti-ghosting tech that automatically clears the screen on refresh, which should eliminate another one of the common issues with E-Ink panels. No word on how many colors this can actually display, but Dasung claims they use a new X-Color Filter Algorithm that should result in “true-to-life color reproduction.” Yeah, we wouldn’t count on this coming close to the color reproduction on a cheap LCD monitor, but it just might offer a bit more color than your typical E-Ink devices.
The Dasung Paperlike 13K Color has no backlighting, as is the case with other E-Ink displays, although it does have front lighting with an adjustable color temperature for easy visibility when you’re working in low-light spaces. It has a touchscreen, by the way, so you can tap on icons and buttons onscreen, with physical buttons for actual monitor controls, so you can quickly adjust contrast, brightness, and more with a few quick button presses. The whole thing, by the way, is clad in an aluminum shell with an ultra-slim profile.
The monitor comes with two connectivity options – USB-C and mini-HDMI, so you can opt for whichever one your PC or laptop has available. It doesn’t have a battery, by the way, so you need to plug it to a DC outlet, which means you’ll need to have a couple wires dangling any time you’re using it. Other features include a built-in mono speaker, a 3.5mm headphone jack, a portable stick stand, and a magnetic cover that can also be used as a foldable stand.
The Dasung Paperlike 13K Color is available now, priced at $749. They also sell a grayscale version with similar specs for $679.
